The UN General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS) concludes today. Throughout the session, many Member States called for a progressive, human-rights and public health based approach to addressing the drug problem, and called for a moratorium on the death penalty.

The Outcome Document reaffirms commitments to the international drug conventions, and recognises the need to address the key causes and consequences of the world drug problem. 

One of the world’s greatest ‘drug problems’ is that in most of the world, people dying of cancer and other painful illnesses do not have access to basic pain relief medication. Low- and middle-income countries account for 83% of the global population, yet consume only 8% of medical morphine worldwide. After being long neglected, the global crisis of untreated pain has begun to receive greater international attention in recent years.